Senior Mechanical Engineer

January 2022

Aurora, CO | Engineering | Full-Time

$120,000

General Position Summary

The Senior Mechanical Engineer is the highest level non-managerial role within the company. While often an individual contributor, s/he may perform as the project engineer, leading the efforts of other technical team members in the development of new products. The Senior Engineer serves as a key staff resource for the Director of Mechanical Engineering, and a source of expertise for the rest of the company. A skilled practitioner, s/he uses and follows best practices when available, and exceptional judgement when working in new and unfamiliar technical areas. 

S/he for developing product design suitable for manufacturing, testing, installation, operation, maintenance, and repair of the equipment developed. As a senior peer, the Senior Mechanical Engineer may be asked to check the work of other colleagues. When developing new products, s/he may have to perform a requirements analysis, assuring all the requisite features are incorporated into the design. S/he may work within a systems engineering framework, systematically identifying customer, code, jurisdictional, and derivative requirements are addressed. S/he will have product manufacturing knowledge and experience, and will be comfortable working operators an technicians charged with building his/her designs. 

As a senior technical resource, the Senior Mechanical Engineering will have a history of professional and personal development behind them. Recognizing the importance of skill acquisition in the ability to generate personal and professional value, s/he will have demonstrated a history of acquiring and developing new skills and competencies. Most importantly., S/he will have contributed to the competencies and capabilities of their employers and colleagues. This collaborative learning may have come in the form of developing a portfolio of patents, or training new skills, or by participating with other team members in the creation of new concepts and ideas.  

As a member of a multi-disciplined team, the Senior Mechanical Engineer can recognize when to contribute his/her unique set of skills and abilities, and when to seek the input of other knowledgeable specialists and colleagues. S/he is willing and capable of learning new capabilities and skills as required to meet the needs of new projects or corporate opportunities. This is possible because s/he has a deep and rich set of education and experience to permit him/her to have a good technical understanding of the product and its use. The Senior Mechanical Engineer will have expertise in one or more disciplines including, but are not limited to, (1) simple structural design with continuous and discrete attachments, (2) mechanism specification and development, (3) environmental engineering, with a particular emphasis on heat and mass transfer, (4) controls development, with a particular emphasis on specification, implementation and management of programmable logic controllers (PLCs), (5) product qualification and validation processes with a particular emphasis the role analysis, testing, and field qualification practices, (6) significant and varied materials and process expertise including metallics, non-metallics, and composite materials. While s/he may be specialized in one area, they will have demonstrated experience and competency in more than one.

As a senior technical professional in a rapidly growing organization, s/he will have the ability to work effectively on a wide range of relevant domains beyond the pure technical aspects of leading a specific effort or project. For example, with an emphasis on collaboration, s/he will be a member of a larger team charged with assuring a product development effort meets its objectives in a timely and cost-effective manner. This requires the Senior Mechanical Engineer to have the ability to plan, organize, staff, direct and control a project and its related activities. In this responsibility, s/he will be responsible for leading qualified employees in their efforts on the project.

Beyond the necessary technical experience and education, the Senior Mechanical Engineering position is expected to manage significant creative aspects of the design and development process. This requires excellent communication, problem-solving, and organizational skills, and very high emotional IQ.

Essential Job Functions

The following represents a representative sample of essential functions and responsibilities for the position. This list is not exhaustive, and additional duties and responsibilities may be assigned as required by the position and business

1.    This position is a focal point for reviewing and analyzing requirements, synthesizing design approaches, and implementing those approaches using industry and company standards and methods to mee the organization’s objectives. In conducting these responsibilities, the Senior Mechanical Engineer will may perform many or more of the following activities in successfully supporting legacy products and launching new ones.

 

  • Review product specifications from all stakeholders (Internal and external), matching high level requirements to features and functions required in the product
  •  Analyze requirements and specifications, deriving new ones as required to assure product performance and design intent is met.
  • Develop design strategies to successfully implement the requirements into the product design within the planned/anticipated project cost and schedule.
  • Synthesize design approaches using a combination of personal, organizational, and external education and experience to create a build package approach meeting requirement.
  • Implement the approach, defining the product geometrically in a variety of media, and specification of appropriate materials and processes 
  •  As required, specific and execute full scale and subscale tests and simulations to reduce risk or meet a customer/client qualification requirement
  •   Oversee the fabrication and acceptance of new products and first articles, confirming compliance with design or adjusting the design as required to meet the capabilities of the specified process
  • Consult with manufacturing and procurement on the capabilities and capacity of internal and external resources charged with building the product.
  •  Organize and conduct design reviews as appropriate to secure organizational acceptance of the design, and to identify sources of risk within the design.
  • Support initial fielding of the design, confirming the full-life product life cycle has been successfully addressed, including but not limited to Manufacturing, Installation, Commissioning and Maintenance.

2.    In performing project responsibilities, the Senior Mechanical Engineer will:

  • Plan and schedule technical activities related to their assigned projects, remaining attentive to committed schedules and budgets attached to the project. 
  • Establish and implement methods of compliance with internal processes and practices, and applicable codes, practices, QA/QC policies, performance standards and specifications.
  • Analyze safety hazards, failure causes and effects, reliability and maintainability trends, and operational usage profiles requiring product changes.
  • Lead root cause analysis of in-service problems and sustaining engineering activities (including operational hazards, deficiency reports, parts obsolescence, corrosion effects, and reliability degradation).
  • Ensure cost-effective support to achieve optimum product performance over its life cycle.
  • Cooperate and communicate effectively with senior leaders, project manager and other participants to provide status, identify and resolve risks, and provide needed assistance and technical support.
  • Serve as the focal point for review engineering deliverables developed for his/her projects, and initiate appropriate corrective actions, 

3.    Creatively establish technical approach to unique problems presented by customer requirements

  •  Setup schemes or designs, and elaborate reports and results to clients
  • Develop and implement policies, standards, and procedures for the engineering and technical work performed in the organization

4.    Support and participate in a culture of service and action within the mechanical engineering team . 

  • Respond to service calls promptly, performs maintenance of equipment systems at a customer site on a variable shift schedule that is determined by customer needs, and assists operators with operational problems that occur during a shift
  • Follow escalation procedures to ensure that problems are resolved expeditiously and that timely communications are maintained with designated personnel and customer management

5.    Support a safe working environment and product performance·      

  • Analysis of safety hazards, failure causes and effects, reliability and maintainability trends, and operational usage profiles changes

6.    Perform administrative functions such as evaluating and writing reports, securing approval on expenditures concerning projects, and assuring timesheets and related hourly expenses are tracked.

 

  • Perform overall quality control of the work (budget, schedule, plans, engineering, and ops performance) and report regularly on project status to the management team

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

  • Demonstrable experience using or managing PLM/PDM systems
  • Demonstrable experience working in a multi-disciplined engineering team, with minimum composition of mechanical and electrical proficiencies  
  • Demonstrable experience working with 3D design systems, with preference for Dassault systems CATIA/SOLIDWORKS® products in a production environment
  •  Demonstrable experience working in an MRP I/II/ERP environment
  • PE License is strongly desired
  • Experience in varied organizational size (i.e., large, and small) high desired
  • Computer Skills/Equipment: SOLIDWORKS®, CFD SOLIDWORKS® Flow Simulation, MS Office, MS SharePoint, MS Teams
  • Ability travel for short durations up to 25% of time

Education

  • Education: BS in Mechanical Engineering or related/complimentary discipline, with an MS in a complimentary field such as mechanical, electrical/electronics, materials, or physics  
  •  Experience: Minimum of 10 years of experience in product development developing new products and sustaining legacy products within an engineering/manufacturing company, preferably in the wireless or telecom industry